Important Announcements

1.) There are only 2 sleeps until Christmas!

2.) As such, FitC will be a little bare this week. Unless I'm really inspired by something, there probably won't be a Weekly pic or a Friday Quote. Hope y'all don't mind!

3.) No, for real though, Christmas is the day after tomorrow!

In preparation, I've made Dulce De Leche candy, Banana Nut Bread and Peppermint Bark. All my Christmas treats involve a Ziploc bag and a hammer (crushed candy canes for Bark and crushed pecans for candy and bread), because I like to play Thor when I bake. All will be given as gifts and eaten on Christmas day, with a nice cuppa coffee or tea. What are your plans this week? I hope they are equal parts tasty and fantastic!

4.) It's not Christmas for me until this happens:

(To be fair, most of my major holidays involve David Bowie.) 

Happy Holidays, my fellow flâneurs! I'm sending love and good wishes to each and every one of you!

Weekly Flâneur: Christmas Time In The City

 Wishing you and yours the very best this holiday season. 

With love, always. 

Christmas tree at The Square, Trade and Tryon, Charlotte, N.C., 2012

Ways In Which I Am A Terrible Friend

Alternatively titled: Adulthood! How do I do it?

Most of my bad friend moments come from lack of income. I really do want to meet you at the bar, or see your favorite band play, but sometimes there's only $7.50 in my bank account. Sometimes my only way to be there with you is to text love and send emoticon smiles.

Every year at Christmas, my friends Jamie, Sokha and I get together to have a Dirty Christmas party. It's Christmas, but with more booze and tasteless jokes. This year we wanted to try The Wine Palette or Cajun Canvas, two of Charlotte's drink and paint studios. You bring your own snacks and drinks, and learn to paint a picture. Fun, right? But even after suggesting it, I had to balk and back out when I saw the $35 price tag. I have markers and sketchpads at here at Casa B. We'll have our own drunk drawing party at my kitchen table.

Back in April, my darling Ashley had a birthday. I bought the book Downpour in advance to send to her in London, along with a Vampire Eric necklace and a birthday card. I also wrote her a nice, long letter and included a badly drawn little comic. I was set. Super Friendship Participate badge earned. I wrapped up the whole thing in brown paper and took it to the post to find it would cost $50 to send overseas. No biggie, I thought. Next paycheck. I tossed it on the floorboard in the backseat of my car. I ran some errands, drove home, parked my car in my driveway, and forgot the package in the backseat. That happened to be the night my car was robbed. (Broken into right in my OWN DRIVEWAY.) Of course, Ashley's package, with all its love tucked inside, was gone.

Over the next few months, my steady writing gig ended and I was back to paycheck begging. My other main source of income is a company that, while wonderful and lovely in all other aspects, was in a period of transition that meant they were notoriously late in paying freelancers. (Happily, this is a thing of the past and they are currently nothing but lovely and wonderful.) I easily found the book online, bought it again, and searched for something quirky to replace Vampire Eric. By the time I managed to find the right gift, I was in limbo with checks. Once again, Ash's lovely little package sat unopened, tucked safely in my closet.

No biggie, I thought. Come September, I have a big story due. I'll get a fat check that will cover both my bills and Ash's gift in one fell swoop. Dust off hands and whistle on. Friendship badge will still be metaphorically earned. Expect, of course, the check didn't come in time. My bank account was low from paying off other bills, and I still accrued late fees. When the big check finally came, it was eaten up by bills. Ashley's gift sat on my shelf.

Now it's December, and I finally, finally have another steady (albeit temporary) small source of income and have pinched together my pennies for the holidays. I can send Ashley a birthday gift! Finally! Bless her heart. She's waited so long.

Which is why, after months of waiting, I don't blame her in the least to see that her latest purchase was Downpour.

Don't worry. I'm still sending her something surprising. (But if anyone wants to buy -- or donate to FitC in exchange for -- a brand new, wrapped, hardcover copy of this book, it's yours.)

I hate to be a bad friend. I hope that my friends reading this will sigh at my hopeless, headlong, arms-flailing attempt at adulthood, but still forgive, as friends do. All I have by way of riches is love, and that I will give to you endlessly and freely.

Fight

(In light of recent tragedy here in the US, my dear friend Brooke eloquently wrote the following passage on Facebook. She has graciously allowed me the honor of re-posting her words here. Many thanks to her, and to her inspiring presence now and in this time of sorrow and confusion. -- Natalie) 

Krishna and Arjuna Via Inanna Returns

Gandalf the Grey Via LOTR Wiki

A thousand faces. Click image to enlarge.

By Brooke B. 

Last night at midnight, literally as soon as I possibly could, I saw The Hobbit with friends. It's no exaggeration to say we were as giddy as little kids the entire time. And yet Tolkien's great genius, one that Peter Jackson ably captured in the film, is to weave story that simultaneously delights all the giddy children in the room and conveys to us, the adults, we who live ever more complex lives imbued with every possible shade of grey, something I believe children still instinctively know:

There is Bad in this world. It exists. We cannot outrun its reach or outshine its shadow. Dwarves cannot tunnel past it and Golden Eagles cannot fly over it and all the beauty of the Elves will not ease its ugliness, or the anguish that ugliness leaves behind.

So what to do? What do we do?

There was a moment in the film that reminded me so powerfully of recent discussions on the Bhagavad Gita that I caught my breath. Early in the Gita, Arjuna the Warrior, the greatest fighter of his age, lays down his arms in despair. He looks out over the fields of battle, sees all his family and his friends poised to brutalize each other senselessly, and he slumps to the floor of his chariot and cries out in anguish to Krishna that he cannot, he cannot, he cannot do this anymore.

Does anyone here not know how that feels? No. Not a one of us. Particularly not today.

Krishna's reply runs counter to every New Testament tenet to which we, as inheritors of a Judeo-Christian cultural aesthetic, have willingly or unwillingly been primed to respond. Krishna does not advocate peace. He does not tell Arjuna to keep lying there so he can bring some lions and some lambs over to lie down with him. No -- God Incarnate, the Hot of Heat and the Wet of Water and, yes, the Prince of Peace, were it to suit him, roars in absolute rage and commands Arjuna to get up already and FIGHT. It is a hard concept for many of us to wrap our heads around, this moment when the God of All Things advocates for war. Some friends and I discussed that, when we talked about that passage in the Gita -- our various indignant or angry or sad responses to this moment when the divine, the thread of beauty that binds all things, tells his greatest hero to get back up and go kill people.

And then last night, watching the Hobbit, I saw Gandalf come blasting into the Goblin Kingdom in a fury of white light and command Thorin and all his dwarves to GET UP. They have all given up, you see. They are captured, bound deep underground, twelve heroes (familiar number, yes?) far from the light and surrounded by thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of goblins, too many enemies to count and death drooling all around them. Despair is the only reasonable option. But it is the wrong one. They are warriors. They are made, bred, trained to fight. It's in their blood and bones and beards, and if they are to die, they should die with swords in their hands. In their despair they have forgotten who they are: they are warriors. Warriors of the light. So in comes Gandalf, roaring like Krishna, enraged, and he screams one word to them: "FIGHT!"

And just like any other magic spell, their despair melts away when they hear the right word. They wake up. They get up. They FIGHT.

Because The Hobbit is epic fantasy, the dwarves prevail against the goblin hordes, and live to fight another day. And because the Gita is epic religious myth, the ending is not so tidy: Arjuna dies. Everyone dies. It is, perhaps, harder to see in the story of faith than in the story of fantasy why we should fight off our despair. Why we should fight at all.

But, still, friends. Still. We don't know the end to any story, really. We can only know what we're called to do, and do that thing. In the face of overwhelming darkness, in the face of the forces against which it is only reasonable, only human, perhaps even only right, to despair -- pick up your arms. Get up. Fight. In whatever way you are called to do so, fight. I will call it fighting for the light; you may call it whatever you choose. But fight.

Friday QuoteDay

Today is the first audio Friday QuoteDay at FitC, starring none other than Neil Gaiman, giving short advice to aspiring artists in the best way possible. (Oppa Gaiman Style!)

A young woman asks if she should pursue her dream to be an artist (a director) or if there are enough artists in the world. Mr. Gaiman gives her a heartfelt answer that includes this gem: "None of them are you. None of them are going to change people and change the world in the way you can change it."

Weekly Flâneur: Not Quite

Click any image to enlarge. 

Yellow leaves of Autumn. 

It's not quite winter yet, and the leaves still cling. 

Uptown Charlotte, N.C., December 2012

Strangers On A Blog

There was a blog I followed last year written by a woman in New York City who was laid off from her job. The only work she was able to find was part-time at a gym over an hour and 1/2 away from her home, and she wrote about her commute, the patrons who would frequent the gym, the employees, the members, and her continuous work search. But over time the posts became more personal and she was writing about fights with her boyfriend and feelings of despair. Then one day her blog was gone. Deleted. I don't know what happened to her, but a year later I still think about this unfinished story. I think about how strange the world of blogging can be, how for a moment in time I was privileged to read the daily thoughts of a stranger whose face I didn't know. How there is a woman I could pass on the streets of New York, or share a ride with on a train, who I know so much and yet so little about.

In my own little blogging world, I write surprisingly very little about my daily life and self. The more personal posts come months after the fact, but yet you still read me, and I thank you for it. Because, You and I? We are not strangers. Not really. Here is my face, my hands, my words. Pass me on the street and stop to tell me your dreams. Stop to tell me the taste of the green apples of your childhood, of the small torn hole in your coat that lets your skin feel the bitter pleasure of the cold rainy afternoon. Let's not be strangers. I'll start.

Here is my day: It is quiet in the house. My husband is working from home today and when he does, I tend to stay sedentary, silent as not to disturb, nesting in piles of blankets and cups of tea. (On days when I am alone, I am a raucous One-Woman Broadway Show.) Two writers living in one house, we often retreat into our own spaces and worlds and greet each other in the evening hours as if it were a pleasant surprise; "Oh, hello! You're here too! I missed you today." We are only one wall apart.

Last week, I pulled all of our joint Christmas decorations and bits-n-bobs out of the hidden corners of storage to make the house shine. Matt calls the image on my matching set of Christmas mugs my Mentally Challenged Moose. Not all outcast reindeer were born with red noses, poor fellow. He keeps me company in my nesting.

In the late morning hours I am awake in bed and lost in thought. I write elaborate lists titled, "NATALIE. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER." Fail at the application when the day starts in full. To check off one thing on the list is an accomplishment worth celebrating. In the quiet of this morning I managed two.

I write long-winded sentences and delete them.  I have everything and nothing to say. I think of my father, my half-sister. The house smells of laundry, my sweaters drying over the stair banister. It is the first cold day in weeks. Have I forgotten how lovely the cold could be?

Later, I will commandeer the kitchen and crush long candy canes in Ziploc bags to make Peppermint Bark for my mother. It'll be the fifth or sixth batch made this month, the only Christmas treat I've conquered to perfection.

Later, Matt and I will share our bed, and talk about the ocean, the way sand crabs blink, and the small spaces between us will dissolve. If we are lucky the rain will be our lullaby, and if not, the distant sound of lone train whistles will lull us to sleep. In North Carolina, I have never lived in any place where I could not hear the sound of a lonely night train.

If I am lucky, sleep will come undisturbed. The things I do not want to write to you now, the things you may not know, become tide pools in my mind. It happened like this; my half-sister's child, a young man in his twenties, stepped into the ocean in November and never returned. We are not strangers on a cold beach, and the train we share rolls on into the night.

Here is my day, then; I wake and think of you; stranger, friend, reader, and wonder if you know that though this world is hard and rough to walk, it is worth the walk. I want to keep walking it. I want you to keep walking. There is still so much to see.

City Beauty: Behold the Mighty Power of Baking Soda

(Previously on City Beauty: A judgmental cock and smooth legs.)

Even the box knows it's magic. Look at that sparkle. Like Edward Cullen in a measuring cup.

Most of my bath, cleaning and beauty tricks involve one ingredient: Baking Soda. I use it so much that it the box rarely leaves the bathroom counter. Once it stayed there for so long the ink from the cardboard left a stain from being exposed to so much shower steam, and I just turned it around and used baking soda to clean it up. It cleans itself! Miracle! Best part is that it's a cheapie product, and being in a cash-flow hiatus (unemployed freelance writer!) I can feel frivolous using the stuff on everything.

So here now are two of my favorite tricks using mighty baking soda.

Hair: Hard Water Haven

Growing up, my parents' home relied on well water. In my part of America, that meant privately owning the water supply that ran through our pipes and not paying the city a monthly bill for water use. City-controlled water contains fluoride supplements and softeners to remove some of the chemicals from the water. We relied on a Britta Filter pitcher for drinking water (and later, a fancy fridge with a filtered drink dispenser built in the door) since the tap water had a chalky taste. Well water is "hard" water thanks to high levels of dissolved minerals, primarily calcium and magnesium, and hard water isn't very good for hair. Using baking soda gets rid of the built-up from hard water and softens your hair, a trick I wish I had known for my frizzy hair when I was a young teen.

You will need:

- 1 teaspoon of baking soda, or roughly the size of a large coin poured into the palm of your hand
- Dollop of shampoo on top of said baking soda

The How-To:

- Mix it together into a shamp-soda hybrid
- Wash your hair!
- Repeat once a week

For those WITHOUT hard water, this is a fantastic way just to give your hair a boost and remove product built-up.

Face: Feeling Fancy While Frugal

This mix is so ridiculously easy I'm almost ashamed to share it. As I've mentioned before, I have sensitive skin, so scrubbing my face with a washcloth or abrasive scrub isn't for me. Some swear by a baking soda scrub, but a gentle facial will work just as well without irritating the skin. Just be sure to apply this one over the sink. Might as well go ahead and get naked, so none of the mix splashes on your clothes, and for funsies.

You will need:

- 2 tablespoons baking soda, or a small palm-full. (Hold your hand over the sink in case of spillage.)
- 1 tablespoon of warm water, or a splash from the tap.

The How-To:

- Mix into a paste. The mix should not be watery.
- Apply to face. (Be grown-up and do not get it in your eyes or mouth.)
- Leave on until completely dry -- at least 5 minutes.
- Rinse, wash face with your cleanser of choice.
- Moisturize!
- Repeat twice a week.

Beautiful! You're beautiful. For real though. Stay beautiful.

Friday QuoteDay

"What I want to talk about is how emotional outbursts typically more associated with men (shouting, expressing anger openly) are given a pass in public discourse in a way that emotional outbursts typically more associated with women (crying, 'getting upset') are stigmatized.

I wish to dispel the notion that women are 'more emotional.' I don’t think we are. I think that the emotions women stereotypically express are what men call 'emotions,' and the emotions that men typically express are somehow considered by men to be something else.

This is incorrect. Anger? EMOTION. Hate? EMOTION. Resorting to violence? EMOTIONAL OUTBURST. An irrational need to be correct when all the evidence is against you? Pretty sure that’s an emotion. Resorting to shouting really loudly when you don’t like the other person’s point of view? That’s called 'being too emotional to engage in a rational discussion.'

Not only do I think men are at least as emotional as women, I think that these stereotypically male emotions are more damaging to rational dialogue than are stereotypically female emotions. A hurt, crying person can still listen, think, and speak. A shouting, angry person? That person is crapping all over meaningful discourse." 

— Jen Dziura, writer for The Gloss. Read the whole thing here. 

Weekly Flâneur: Diverse City

Image of street mural. Click to enlarge.

Delight in diversity.

"La luz de diversidad" translates to "The light of diversity." 

Birth and light, in glowing blues and reds. 

Seen in Winston-Salem, N.C., 2012